When an earthquake hits, people turn to Caltech to answer the basic questions: How big was it? Where was the epicenter? How many aftershocks? But with the Sierra Madre Earthquake slamming into Pasadena on Friday, another question arises: What if The Big One hits Caltech? First of all, every building on the scientific institute's campus is reinforced to 1 1/2 times earthquake construction standards, said Bill Irwin, assistant director of the Caltech physical plant.

California Lutheran University will offer students and the community the opportunity to meet two respected writers at the eighth annual Pulitzer Symposium on Monday and Tuesday in the auditorium. Featured lecturers will be poet Galway Kinnell and writer Shirley Ann Grau. Kinnell received a Pulitzer for poetry in 1983 for his work, "Selected Poems," and has won numerous other awards for works including "Body Rags," "Mortal Words" and "The Past."

A cat peeing in an author's bag? A writer waking up to discover that a complete stranger hasd left him four jars of delicious homemade preserves? Such things are not traditionally part of book promotion. But they happened to Bill Cotter and Annie La Ganga, an Austin, Texas-based couple who celebrated the simultaneous release of their debut books this fall by jumping in their car for an 8,500-mile, 27-day, do-it-yourself tour. They didn't have much choice. As the business of publishing changes, book tours increasingly look like bad risks.

November 9, 2003 | Tony Perrottet, Tony Perrottet is the author of "Pagan Holiday: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists."

Los Angeles is a city awash with words. Just look at this week's roster of literary readings: There's Russell Banks reading today at the Canal Club in Venice, Orson Scott Card on Tuesday at Vroman's in Pasadena, Mark Salzman on Friday at UCLA, and Leo Braudy on Saturday at Skylight Books in Los Feliz. And that's just a tiny fraction of the total number of literary happenings around town -- poetry slams, book groups, recitals from works in progress, screenplay seminars. Should we be alarmed?

Consumer sentiment rebounded solidly early in February after a disappointing showing the previous two months, according to a survey released Friday. The monthly Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index rose to 76.3, up from 73.8 in January. Quiz: How much do you know about looming federal budget cuts? The readings in December and January were weighed down by Americans' concerns about the potential drag from the so-called fiscal cliff, which federal lawmakers averted with a last-minute deal.

Editor's note: The following is Times book critic David L. Ulin's introduction to "Lament in the Night" by S hoson Nagahara (Kaya Press: 452 pp., $19.95 paper), which collects two lost pieces of Los Angeles literature, "Lament in the Night" and "The Tale of Osato. " Together, these works reintroduce the writing of Nagahara, a Japanese immigrant to 1920s L.A. who wrote in Japanese for Japanese readers, uncovering the life of Little Tokyo from the inside. On Saturday, Ulin and Andrew Leong , the book's translator, are to be at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo to discuss Nagahara, his writing and its place in the culture of Los Angeles . There are also to be readings by Tamlyn Tomita and Gedde Watanabe, and a reception.

Dissatisfied with what it perceives as "a scarcity of good community theater" in southern Orange County, a new troupe calling itself the Monday Night Alternative will launch a monthly series of free, radio-style theater readings next week in San Juan Capistrano. "There's just not enough theater around here," said co-founder B.J. Scott, who will stage the first reading on Monday: Paul Zindel's "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds." "So we're going to try to do something about that."